Astronomers confirm a galaxy 13.4 billion light years away is the most distant object yet found, raising new questions about how soon galaxies appeared in the wake of the Big Bang.
Researchers using the airborne SOFIA infrared observatory have found a quasar where star formation has managed to continue despite a torrent of radiation.
By measuring a star’s age and chemical makeup, astronomers can determine where a sun originated in the galactic disk before migrating outward. The Sun, it turns out, likely formed about 2,000 light years closer to the Milky Way’s core.
Astronomers have detected a powerful molecular wind being blasted away from a starburst galaxy in the early universe, the earliest example yet of a mechanism thought to prevent galaxies from growing too large too fast.
Supercomputer simulations show star clusters, regardless of size, form in the same way, starting with a dense cloud of interstellar gas and shaped over several million years by gravity, turbulence and radiation pressure
Observations by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory of two five-billion-solar-mass black holes at the cores of two ancient ‘red nugget’ galaxies show they squelched star formation early on while consuming surrounding gas.